application for impendingnetwork

Are you over 18?
Yes
Is your character 15 years old or older?
Yes

Pen Name
Iddy
Contact Method
A PM to ihdreniel @ plurk, an email to ZieglerFan719 (at) gmail (dot) com, or a PM to myfavoritemurder @ dreamwidth; whatever works best for you guys.
Current Characters
Alfie Solomons

Personal Frequency Number
39006
Network User Name
User8988598345 - going with the mods' advice on this one; I like the idea of the network just auto-assigning her something generic! She's an ancient Greek peasant-turned-warlord; the odds of her having been given the opportunity to learn to read are low, and it's not something she would have gone out of her way to learn, so I headcanon her as illiterate.

Given Name
Callisto
Canon
Xena: Warrior Princess
Canon Point
post-2x05, "Return of Callisto"

Background
Link! Her canonpoint is after her first death and trip to Tartarus, but before she strikes up a partnership with Ares, God of War.

Personality
Callisto is severely stunted, both emotionally and psychologically. She was a young girl when she lost her village, her family, and her innocence, and the goals that she's dedicated her life to - becoming a better fighter and warlord than the one who had destroyed her family, and eventually destroying her in turn - are very much a young girl's goals, the kind of wish fulfillment that a grieving, angry, traumatized preteen might use to self-soothe. The problem is that, even as she grew and should have ostensibly matured, she didn't: she become more determined and more entrenched and more obsessed instead, and she's reached the point where the only thing that truly matters to her is fighting Xena, tarnishing Xena's reputation as a reformed villain and newly-minted do-gooder by laying waste to villages in her name, and hurting those that Xena loves. Just killing her isn't enough anymore, because then the fight would be over and she'd have nothing. When Callisto dies for the first time, it's because both she and Xena are sinking into quicksand, and at first she's fine with this: she sounds upbeat and almost excited when she says that dying together means they'll get to spend eternity fighting each other in Tartarus. It's only when Xena manages to pull herself out of the sand and save herself that she starts begging for her life: she doesn't fear or hate death, but she fears and hates the empty void that she knows awaits her if she loses her grip on the singular thing that she feels gives her purpose and meaning.

For many people, an aborted quest for revenge could be a blessing in disguise: it could be an opportunity to branch out and find fulfillment in other ways, or even to form bonds with other people and regain some of the love and companionship that had previously been lost. Unfortunately, it's not that simple with Callisto. She doesn't give up or change tactics that easily, and she's capable of being incredibly patient when she sees a light at the end of the tunnel; when she sees a way, however small or unlikely, that might let her claw her way back to where she wants to be. When she doesn't see that light, or when - as happens later in canon - she finally realizes that no amount of the hurt that she rains down on Xena will heal her own psychological wounds, she doesn't take the chance to reassess her own approach to life. Instead, she falls into a despair so deep that she becomes determined to end her own existence: not just to die, because dying means living on in the afterlife, but to find a way to destroy herself so completely and utterly that there's no consciousness left to live on. There's also the fact that, while Xena is undeniably the epicenter of Callisto's rage, everyone around her ends up being a casualty of it in some way or another. She's entirely preoccupied with her own pain, and like the extreme version of a playground bully or an upset child who lashes out and hits during a tantrum, she deals with being upset by trying to make everyone else hurt, too. I compare her to a child not to minimize her monstrous actions or to hint that it would be wrong to hold her responsible for them like the adult that she is, but to emphasize that treating her like a tantruming child probably is the best way to deescalate her when she's in that state (though someone who was too open or obvious about doing so would earn her ire; even horrifically immature people don't like being patronized).

Despite all that she is and all that she's done, there's a part of Callisto - a very small, very neglected part - that's capable of feeling guilt, if not regret, for the harm she's caused. She justifies her crimes to herself by laying all the blame on Xena, reasoning that she wouldn't be who she is if her village hadn't been burned, and dismissing all of the poor choices she herself has made along the way. At one point (just a little bit past her canonpoint), her mother comes to visit her in Tartarus and tells her that though she'll always love her no matter what, she needs to stop blaming Xena for everything and take proper responsibility for the harm she's caused; this ultimately doesn't make her rethink her life and her choices, but the idea bothers her enough to send her into a sobbing meltdown that appears to last a good long while (in the next episode she shows up in, she's shown whimpering and screaming and tearing at her own hair, and only calms down a bit when the goddess Hera shows up and offers her a deal that will allow her to renew her crusade against Xena). The idea of remorse and personal responsibility is something she'll fight against tooth and nail, but the seeds are there, even if she flatly refuses to nurture them.

So what does this mean for interacting with her? Well. She's volatile on a good day, but she's capable of pulling herself together enough to get things done; she did succeed in her goal to train herself into a fighter of Xena's caliber, and she's twice now managed to build up a small army (maybe 15-20 men? it's never totally clear) that sees her as their leader and follows her orders. If Xena were in the game setting, she'd just as soon stay and make her life miserable here, but since she won't be, it likely wouldn't be too difficult to rope her into any efforts that might be made to solve the setting's mysteries and return home. Those trying to work with her would get the benefits of someone who's decently intelligent, fantastically determined and goal-oriented, and willing to personally face untold amounts of danger and adversity in order to get the job done. On the flip side, they'd also have to deal with her erratic mood swings, general immaturity and childishness, and complete willingness to treat friend and foe alike poorly, and no one could be blamed for deciding that the latter isn't worth the former.

TL;DR for the app's Google form:

- She's violent, angry impulsive, immature, stubborn, and cruel.

- She's also grieving, depressed, traumatized, and wracked with self-hatred. This doesn't by any means excuse any of the stuff above, but it's an equally important facet of her.

- She's not wholly incapable of feeling guilt or caring for other people, but it's something she violently suppresses in herself. The only people she'll allow herself to love are her family, who are dead and cut off from her.

- She's very likely to cause trouble and be a thorn in people's sides, but she is capable of working with others in pursuit of a shared goal, and she'll be highly motivated to find a way to return home. She won't be anything close to predictable, dependable, or consistent, but she won't be a total saboteur, either.

CRAU
N/A

Supernatural Powers
N/A

Natural Abilities
Completely unafraid of death and danger (to the point of near-suicidal recklessness, so this isn't always a good thing), dogged and tenacious, goal-oriented, an excellent horseback rider, well-trained in both hand-to-hand combat and with various forms of weaponry (swords, throwing knives, and chakrams), superior physical fitness in general (she's very strong, flexible, has good balance, etc.).

Inventory
Her sword, her knife, her horse. (If the horse isn't okay, that's cool; I can leave it off - you said pets are fine but vehicles aren't, and a horse is sort of both!)

Imperative Inventory
N/A

The following are samples
Their Worst Fear
That ruining Xena's life won't actually do anything to heal her trauma, grief, and anger. She's fully right to fear this, because later canon (and just... common sense, honestly) proves it absolutely true.

3 Important Survival Tips
-food
-water
-shelter
SOMEONE READ THIS TO THEM

Also going on mod advice here; this will be written in someone else's handwriting.

Third person sample
A TDM from another game!